Not only are root systems vital for a tree to channel sustenance from the soil, but they are also communicators, connecting the plant to its environment and to other plants. Roads, too, are connectors, telling a story of movement and distances. This year, for our inaugural Roots & Roads Prize, Frontier Poetry invites you to imagine your poems as roots and roads, reaching both inward and outward.

We are in search of work that explores the tensions between these ideas, the relationships we have between origin and becoming, between our foundations and the possibilities that are sustained and/or troubled by them. We encourage you to interpret these words loosely and expansively, to let the poem take you where it wants. Bring us your ghosts, your maps, your homes, your alienations, your dreams of the future—lead us somewhere unexpected!

We’re thrilled to be able to award $3000 to our first place prize winner, $300 to second place, and $200 to third place.

**Last updated July 2024 (description taken from the program’s website)